Search Engine: Understanding Their Purpose and Functionality

Every day you search for a lot of information on the internet and use some medium for this, but have you tried to know what this search engine is and what its purpose is?

The search engine is a program that identifies and finds information in any database that is related to or according to the keywords entered by the user. Search engines are used to find websites on the World Wide Web.

If we want to get any information, we do not face any problems in it and we search the desired information ourselves.

There was a time in the past when we had to ask answers to many questions from our teachers and elders. Still, there were many such questions for which we had to go to the library to find answers from books.

I still remember those days when, while preparing for the exam, many such questions could not be found even after searching the entire book.

But the answers to those questions were also available on the internet. If we go back a little from that time, there was a time when there were fewer internet users and fewer website owners, so information was not available that much.

Everyone probably knows what Google is and which country company it is, but very few people know that apart from being a website, it is also a search engine.

Yes, you understood it right, Google is not just a website; it is a search engine, and this is the medium through which we get any information. It finds our requested information on countless websites in the world.

If there were no search engines, it would have been very difficult for us to reach the website. Then we would have to know the name of the website through publicity or advertisement or else we would have to write down the URL of that website also.

Now think once about what we do today. We don’t need to remember the name of every website. Just enter the keyword in the search engine, and all the best websites related to it appear in front of us.

We can understand very well how difficult it would be to surf the internet and access useful websites without a search engine.

That is why, in this post, we will know in detail what a search engine is.

Along with this, we will also know what its use is, and we will also know the names of other search engines apart from Google.

Search Engine Information

Search engine is a type of software or program that works through the internet. Which accesses the database (collection) of information based on the query entered by the user and then gives the best results to the user.

The search engine displays the results as a list containing the best information available for the information the user is searching for. Let us understand this with an example. Suppose I want to know that

“What is a computer?”

So we will enter this keyword in Google or another search engine and search.

Now what Google will do here is that it will see all the websites in its database and will show us all those websites in the form of a list in which the answer to this keyword is written along with the keyword ‘what is computer’.

The page in which Google shows a list of all these websites is called the search engine result page.

Now at the top of this list will be that website that will be the best according to the search engine and that will follow all the rules according to its algorithm, which we also know as search engine optimization, i.e., SEO.

To satisfy the users, the search engine wants to give accurate answers to their questions, which is why the website that has the best information is at the top in the SERP.

If we talk about how many websites are there on the internet today that work like search engines, then you will also know very well that there are many such websites available.

But the most popular among these is Google. Apart from this, Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com, and Yandex are also used.

How Does A Search Engine Work?

Every search engine uses a very complex mathematical formula to generate search results; only then are the results shown on SERP for the searched keyword.

Its algorithm goes to the webpage of the website, crawls the title, content, heading, and keyword density of the page, and analyzes the key elements.

After this, it slowly compares the pages of the website, and after seeing the user satisfaction in every aspect, it gives ranking to the web page in SERP.

The algorithm of every search engine is unique. That is why it happens that the post that is at number 1 in the ranking on Yahoo is at some other number in the ranking on Google.

This happens in all search engines, the ranking of each post is different from the others.

The algorithm used by these engines is kept very secret, and efforts are made to improve it by continuously making changes to it.

This means that to understand any search engine, you will have to experiment with it and see the results.

Besides, the errors found in it will also have to be analyzed, and this will have to be done not just once but again and again because the algorithm is always updated.

For many people, Google is the internet, for them, it is the first step to searching for other sites, and to be honest, this is the biggest invention in the world of the internet.

If such websites were not there, then everyone would not have been able to get so much information easily. But have you ever tried to understand how this search engine works?

Otherwise, let’s understand it.

Every search engine has three main steps:

• Crawling,
• Indexing and
• Retrieval & ranking.

1. Crawling

Crawling is the process from which it all starts. This means visiting or searching the data of the website. Under this process, it starts taking data from the website.

Its main job is to scan the site and collect details about every page.

For this, it goes to every page of the website and scans the title, images, keywords, and other linked pages, etc.

The work of different crawlers is also different from each other, some look at the page layout, some look at the advertisements placed on the pages, and some check the spam links.

But how is a website crawled?

An automatic bot also called a spider, views each page one after the other in the minimum amount of time.

For this, he uses the page link and finds out where to go next.

In the initial days, Google Spider could read hundreds of pages every second, which has now become thousands of pages per second.

When a web crawler visits a web page, it collects every link present on the page and adds it to its list as the next page to visit.

Then it visits the next page in its list, and this sequence continues and repeats.

Web crawlers also revisit previous pages whenever any changes are made to them.

This means that if any site is linked to an indexed site, then Google bots crawl that site very quickly.

Some sites are crawled very quickly.

While many sites are crawled very deeply, sometimes if the page hierarchy of a site is very complex then the crawler skips them.

2. Indexing

The indexing process happens when, after crawling, the data is processed and placed in the database.

Let me explain this to you through a very simple example.

When we study, we study the entire syllabus. Read every question and answer it, but write only what is asked in the answer sheet for the exam. Similarly, during crawling, the entire site is crawled.

But it indexes the posts according to the query.

This is the reason why search engines sometimes modify the title and meta description written in the blog and show it on the result page.

It is not necessary to show the title and description that the blogger writes while writing a blog post.

It shows the same thing written for the targeted keyword, but a post ranks on multiple keywords, and the title and description can be different for other keywords.

I have seen many times in my posts that when the post ranks on more keywords than the target keyword, then the title changes for different keywords.

3. Retrieval & Ranking

Retrieval is when the search engine processes the query you enter and displays the content most similar to your query.

Most search engines differentiate themselves from other search engines through their retrieval processes.

They keep their criteria as to which page content fits which query and accordingly, they select the pages based on the search query.

This is the reason why the results of queries searched on Google and Bing are different.

The ranking algorithm searches billions of pages to show you the pages most similar to your search query.

This algorithm made by companies is quite complex, which is why it is kept a secret for its safety.

A good algorithm further improves the user experience. They also do not want webmasters to run their search algorithm as per their own and wrongly go to the top.

If their method comes out, then the work of many hardworking people will also go in vain who prepare content with hard work and rank based on it.

Yes, it is possible that the engine can be exploited, but now it is not so easy to do.

The search engine ranks the site based on how many times the keyword has been used on the page, and due to this, the problem of keyword stuffing also arises.

That means repeating the keyword too many times on the entire page without any reason.

After this came the concept of the importance of links. They started giving more importance to those sites that had a lot of incoming links because it showed the popularity of the site in terms of relevancy.

But due to this, spamming increased significantly across the internet. Nowadays, only those links that have good site authority are given importance.

It gives more importance to those links that come from a government agency than to which web directory the link is from.

Today, the ranking algorithm has become more of a mystery than ever. Not only is search engine optimization important, but good ranking also depends on very good quality content and a great user experience.

Use Of Search Engine – Use Of Search Engine In Hindi

We use the internet every day, and that too to do all kinds of work. But have you ever tried to know what the uses of search engines are?

Now we will talk about why using the Internet means that we start using it through the search engine itself.

Research

Many people use it to do their research work. Such people keep searching for answers to many questions.

Along with this, they need data for their paper. They are looking for a website from which they can get all the information they need.

Suppose someone is researching the engine of a bike, then he will look for such a website from which he will get complete information about the engine.

Search engines give more importance to websites related to research than shopping websites.

This is the reason why when you search for any query, Wikipedia comes up at the top.

There is probably no need for me to tell you what Wikipedia is because it is an open-source website that is full of researchable information.

Since it is open, the accuracy of its information doesn’t need to be very good.

Shopping

A large number of people use search engines for shopping.

Many times, you also search for many such things, which are possible in this. Many people search for products with keywords like “best price” and “free shipping.”.

But in these cases, such websites also use engines to increase their conversion rate.

That is why it is kept in mind that research websites have more importance than shopping-related websites.

It is used to make people consumers whereas research-related websites are only for giving knowledge.

Nowadays, Flipkart and Amazon have started providing easy features for their users to search inside their websites.

But still, when a visitor is not satisfied with it, he opens Google and starts searching for his favorite thing there. Satisfied

Entertainment

We not only use it for research but also use it for entertainment.

Today’s youth do something for entertainment all the time.

Through this, we find videos, audio, and games for our entertainment.

If we talk about some time ago, the internet was not so prevalent, hence the use of tape recorders, TV, sports, etc.

But today, children are also more into digital games than physical games. And use this to get new games.

Examples Of Search Engines

Although people have used many types of engines till now, we are going to tell the names of the search engines used in recent times.

• Google
• Bing
• Yahoo
• Ask.com
• AOL.com
• Baidu
• DuckDuckoGo
• WolframAlpha
• Internet Archive
• Yandex

In Short

Till now, there are many types of search engines available in the world that are experts in finding answers to people’s questions on the internet.

In this sense, Google has become the king because everyone agrees with its usefulness and efficiency, and the person using it is completely satisfied with it.

That is why in this post we also learned about the examples of search engines that are used all over the world apart from Google.

In today’s post, we told you in detail what a search engine is.

We use it every day for some work or another. That is why we also talked about the use of search engines.

I hope you have liked this post, What is a search engine? Because you must have understood well how it works?

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